My great-grandfather was Zhang Juzheng, the man later generations called the one who extended the Ming dynasty’s life by a hundred years.
When I followed my grandfather to the capital, I was swept into a whirlpool;
I grew within the whirlpool,
then stirred it into an even greater storm.
Long-buried events came vividly to life on the page,
along with the people from those years.
To borrow a saying: it’s not that retribution won’t come, only that its time has not yet arrived.
One day, Zhang Tongkui knelt in the ancestral hall and said, “Great-grandfather, look. This Ming dynasty is destined to last another hundred years.”
